WLFI derivatives volume jumps 400% ahead of World Liberty's first token unlock on Monday

Trading volume on WLFI derivatives is spiking as crypto investors prepare for the Trump-linked DeFi project World Liberty Financial to unlock its first tranche of tokens on Monday at 8:00 a.m. ET. 

24-hour volume for WLFI derivatives has spiked over 400% to $3.13 billion on Sunday afternoon, according to Coinglass data, with open interest climbing more than 50% to $760 million. The perpetual futures debuted last week across major exchanges to a price around $0.40, though the price has dipped to about $0.32 as of Sunday afternoon. 

Binance has seen nearly half of the WLFI pre-market trading volume in the past day, the data show, with $1.52 billion compared to OKX's $607 million and Bitget's $428 million. Binance also leads the field in WLFI open interest, with $360 million, more than double Bitget's $107 million. 

Should the pre-market price hold, WLFI will debut tomorrow with a fully diluted value (FDV) of over $31 billion, given its 100 billion WLFI token supply, potentially placing World Liberty into the vicinity of projects such as Sui, Dogecoin, and Tron, which all have an FDV between $32 and $33 billion. Those projects are #11, #12, and #13 in the world for FDV, respectively, according to The Block's price data. 

On Monday, the project will unlock 20% of the tokens purchased by early investors in the $0.015 and $0.05 rounds, which can be claimed through a "Lockbox" process. The unlocked tokens represent about 5% of the token's overall supply. The WLFI token will debut across many major exchanges, according to early announcements. At current prices, investors in the $0.015 round stand to realize a ~20x return. 

World Liberty also teased an upcoming announcement related to its USD1 stablecoin on X last week. "USD1 meets internet capital markets. Announcement coming soon," the post from Friday reads. No other details were provided, though World Liberty is planning a loyalty program for its flagship stablecoin, The Block previously reported. 

If WLFI's current price is matched by spot markets once the tokens become unlocked, the Trump family's stake of 22.5 billion tokens, held by the holding company DT Marks DEFI LLC, would be worth over $7 billion, though the tokens, like other tokens belonging to team members and advisers, won't be immediately unlocked.

President Donald Trump has been criticized for his stake in the project, with some Democrats calling it a potential avenue for corruption. Conflict-of-interest guardrails pushed by Democrats largely failed to make it into the text of the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin-focused legislation that was signed into law by Trump in July.